The Technician Commitment Steering Group has worked with the Research Services Directorate to update the text related to authorship guidance for technical staff. The revised text has been updated in the 'Good Authorship Practice' section of the Staff Research Integrity Course (course link here) as well as authorship guide in EdShare (EdShare link). The revised guidance will include the following text and external links:

It is vital that those who carried out the work get recognition for their contribution on publications. This includes technical and other core staff - the University of Southampton has a useful guide that makes a clear distinction between technical staff contributions for authorship /acknowledgements, along with specific examples. The University of Nottingham applies this definition to cover a range of roles: 'Technical roles that contribute to research may include, but not limited to, data scientists, data engineers, archivists, informaticians, statisticians, software developers, audio-visual technologists, technical professional staff and individuals staffing core facilities, across all disciplines’.

The Technician Commitment Steering Group is pleased to see an increased number technicians being recognised on publications already and hopes this revised authoship guidance will further support this action. 

First published: 2 May 2024

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